After a long hiatus due a hand injury, I've finally finished it and it's one of those gems that I feel like has impacted me on almost a spiritual level so I wanted to just leave a review.

It's GOTY for a reason.

That being said, expect a little bit of jankiness, but get ready for a huge world to get lost in.
Lots of challenges to tackle in your own way.
Beautiful screenshot worthy vistas.
Frustrating and scary moments.
Jaw dropping enemy designs.
Tons of weapons, spells, armor to try out.
Take the time to interact with the characters and read item descriptions to give you an idea of the shattered world your character has arrived in, there's a lot more than meets the eye.

I have a few gripes, namely that there are so many weapons and items but there is a hard limit on how many times you can re-spec your character, it limits experimentation and creativity. The item upgrading system, well, let's be real, a handful of systems are a bit convoluted too.
But don't let that stop you. I recommend a blind experience but look up things when you need to because the game doesn't explain things very well, specially if you're new to souls games. Don't be afraid to try it.

The game at it's core is about perseverance. It's a souls game, it's brutal. Don't give up. Some of the bosses took me days to learn and beat, but the feeling of overcoming a challenge like that is just bliss.

Take breaks if you need to, explore different areas and try various methods to beat the bosses. Elden Ring has so many more ways to play the game than the older souls games and to make it easier on yourself if you want to by using summons or summoning help. Or you can challenge yourself and self impose your own rules. That's the beauty of it.

Hades is an top tier gem of the action-roguelike genre. It really feels like it is a cut above everything else in almost all regards. I don't make many reviews and usually when I do its for a game that I feel is an icon of its genre.

I know the word "roguelike" puts people off because they don't like starting over when they die, but dont fret! Hades is more of a *rogue-lite* with a real sense of progression (even if you lose your run) because you gain upgrades and make your character stronger every time.

The gameplay and combat is back to back fast paced action. There are various weapons and tons of buffs that you get which will make your runs feel unique. On top of good core gameplay/combat, the game is fully fleshed out with quality voice acting, absolutely fantastic music, a good, interesting story and a big cast of likable characters.
You can even fine tune the difficulty of your runs through the in-game pact of punishment by making enemies more difficult or adding other challenges. The game has a lot of replayability and I really hope it gets more DLC or added content in the future as well.

Supergiant games has made amazing games like Bastion and Transistor in the past and they continue to live up to their name with Hades.

For me this has been a good buy because I've been looking forward to play through the Dark Souls series and launching the old version dark souls 1 was terrible just because of the framerate issues that plague the game.
This is essentially a more stable version of the original game that runs SMOOTHER, but its not really BETTER because it still has bugs / different multiplayer issues.

The criticism levied against this remaster is completely valid.

• It's still has a decent amount of bugs from the old DS1.
  
• PvP is a backstab-fest and if you want good dark souls pvp go play Dark Souls 2: Sotfs.
  
• Probably the biggest issue is that fromsoftware didnt do anything to fix hackers, which are ruining the game for some people.This is what a lot of the negative reviews on steam are in regards to as well.
  
• This makes it difficult people who Co-Op because you have to be human to summon and you only get invaded if you're human, but if you play through the game hollow you won't get invaded.
  
  
• HOWEVER, the popular idea that having a hacker invade you gets you soft banned is NOT true, you can only get softbanned if you pick up a hacked item. It's the same as dark souls 3.
  
• It really feels like the devs wanted to keep the game as "original as possible" and just fix performance and tweak multiplayer things and slap some textures on it. In the end if feels like this product lacks passion and effort from the Devs.

Most of the issues it has involve online play. If you are a coop player / pvper the hackers and online issues would definitely be a problem.
On the flip side if you just want to play through the game solo and enjoy the run through hollow and solo like I do, you don't have to deal with backstab fiesta or hackers. The game is the same great dark souls 1 that you remember, bugs and archaic things included.. for better or worse.

It is a good pick up if you never played dark souls 1 before. It runs in 60fps everywhere you go (which dsfix wont do). The texture upgrades are pretty nice but the game still looks similar to what it did before.

If you do own DS1 the game does somewhat feel like a $20 patch, is it worth it? its hard to say.. but you're getting to play with an robust community, enjoy solid 60fps and some bug fixes / upgraded texture.

I personally have encountered 0 bugs so far other than corpses clipping through walls.
In the end its pretty much a more stable dark souls for fans and new players that want to play through the game, it is harder to recommend the game if you have played the original game .. the value of that is how much you want to play the game again in a stable state.

I do have to end with the note that this is a pretty poor send off to fans who were looking forward to a remaster from the devs, FromSoftware, this product feels like it wasn't tackled with much passion or effort which is unfortunate due to the amount of fans this series has.

I love this game.

If you enjoyed Divinity Original Sin 1, this is similar but overall improved.
If you don't know anything about the game..I can't do it any justice with descriptions, I advise you to read the "ABOUT THIS GAME" on the store page and watch some videos.

On top of already being great with the developer campaign... there are modding tools and people can mod the game and create their own campaigns for other people to play!
There is also a game master mode with a DnD vibe so you and your friends can play and one person can GM it.

It's amazing.